This is the rescheduled game for RSL against the Sounders that was moved when they made the final 4 of the Leagues Cup. As pointed out in the RSL season thread there will be quite a few missing from both Seattle and RSL. From RSLFanBoy Seattle will be missing the following: OUT: Paul Arriola (knee) OUT: Reed Baker-Whiting (international duty) OUT: Yeimar Gómez Andrade (hamstring) OUT: Stuart Hawkins (quad) OUT: Ryan Kent (hamstring) OUT: Obed Vargas (international duty) OUT: Christian Roldan (international duty) QUESTIONABLE: Alex Roldan (hip) OUT: Albert Rusnak (red card suspension) For RSL, barring injury will be missing Luna, Gozo, and Ojeda for sure. Cabral Yedlin, Vera, Glad, Katranis Eneli, Caliskan Wolff, Cruz, Diogo Olatunji You might want want to have a player with an incredible amount of experience on the pitch to help with the stakes of the game but I’m sure Russell will make the bench. Big game. A win and they are in the playoffs. Colorado could tie on points but RSL will have the tie breaker. San Jose can only finish with 41 points with a win on the final day so go get 3 points. RSL does need points. Colorado plays LAFC on the final day and they will be at the end of a Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday, Saturday stretch that could see them finish in 1st place if they win out against Atlanta, which is still 0-0 at the moment followed by Toronto and Austin before finishing with Colorado. Points could still be really, really important for LAFC on the last day. But as they say, lets just worry about the games in front of us.
Prediction: Kasey Keller grabs an RSL cross going past the goal and somehow throws it into his own net, and we win 2-1. 1:45 here.
There is no reason Wolff should start There is nobody else on the roster that can go even 45 mins at the spot So… yeah Wolff is gonna start I do not get the love for Russell. He’s the backup qb for this team. Everyone loves what he is on paper and in very limited time. At some point you have to trust the coaching staff. Also worth remembering: the same staff that said Russell wasn’t good enough traded away Agada… they might be right
When we signed Russell I mainly thought it was for the locker room and hope that his bite would be infectious (that didn’t come out right but I’m not changing it); and a guy who could give you 10-15 minutes late when you desperately need a goal.
I’m so there with you to a point. I think he is not capable of playing the wing the way the coaching staff wants. However, even in limited time, he has scored 2 goals. Those were in July, one where we beat an awful DCU team 2-0 at home and also tied a struggling SKC 1-1 away. I’ve got to think that he’d be a better fit, given Wolff’s pretty comically awful display of defense on Saturday, and that Russell at least offers something tangible if we are needing a goal. But it is not great if we are leaning on him for 30+min.
The only thing I can deduce from what Pablo has said about Russell is that he absolutely does not trust him to defend. The feedback is always “Russell makes sense when we’re chasing the game”. Which is a weird weird thing to say when it’s blatantly obvious this team cannot handle the take a lead/manage the game approach. like @goobx1 kid put simply: the best defense is a good offense All that said - I can’t ignore that SKC said he wasn’t good enough to keep around. This isn’t just Pablo and the rsl staff
All true. I was talking to David James at practice today, never thought I would say something like that, and he had a great point about Russell, if RSL is behind they might sub him in but if they are ahead he wont get into the game. I get all that but looking at where SKC is in the standings maybe they're not the best at deciding who to keep around. I am not going to argue that Johnny should start or get a lot of minutes but you can't argue that when he has seen the pitch he has had an impact.
Who was the last starting level player RSL picked up from in the league that actually worked out? Russell, Agada, Brown haven't worked. Maybe Junqua? He's mostly a depth piece though. Caliskan wasn't a starter (that I know of) at Portland. Too soon to tell on Yedlin. Chicho will forever be an asterisk. I'll die on this hill, but MacMath is a good keeper, if you don't ask him to play the way RSL wanted him to last year (mainly with his feet/sweeper keeper), so maybe he's the best, most recent example? Maybe Meram, he did more than Russell. Wow, RSL isn't good at adding MLS players to the roster.
MacMath is a good keeper for a mid table team in the league. Or one that has top end dps elsewhere. He doesn’t make sense for rsl as we need a difference maker there, not an average level gk
MacMath is such an interesting player to talk about. I think he is a decent keeper but is an amazing example of a player that gets the yips. He was just good enough to start but not good enough to keep his position on a couple of teams. That had to mess with his head. He certainly seems to be a great team mate and won the RSL humanitarian award. He looked to have had things all figured out and then he had a few mistakes that probably made the decision for RSL very easy to bring in a couple more GK options. Lucky for RSL they found Cabral. RSL might be in the low 20 for points this season without him. MacMath is an experienced GK that could probably play 5 or 6 more seasons as a trusted back up on an MLS club.
He’s a great guy and has been hard done by in MLS, getting shunted aside by Tim Howard and now Cabral.
Agree to disagree on the backup only. He's definitely a traditional GK though. He's a playoff caliber GK in the right system.
@goobx1 ? We don’t have a great LM rotation for Luna. Unless Diogo rotates over, we might see a shift of having Eneli (he replaced Luna Saturday) in a 3 man midfield behind Diogo in a 4312 Olatunji Cruz Diogo Eneli caliskan Ojeda Katranis Vera glad Yedlin Rafa
Same It would be really fun to see Eneli Ruiz and ojeda in that 3 man midfield. But Pablo seems to have Caliskan as first name on the team sheet so it’s not happening
Even better midfield. Use the outside backs to get forward/attacking width. This makes more sense. One or two midfielders can go forward as needed. Can you imagine if we have 3 high level DPs?
Thanks for this reminder. I think that match gives me a little bit of confidence tonight. I think we get a point in a 2-2 draw.
Starting lineup: -----------Piol-----Cruz -------Eneli-----------Diogo ---------Ruiz---Caliskan Katranis--Vera--Glad--Yedlin ----------------Cabral
Omar Marquez on the bench. I do not know who that is, even after looking him up Our XI squaring off in the PNW#SEAvRSL | @Intermountain pic.twitter.com/81kMyXDimL— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) October 12, 2025
https://www.rsl.com/monarchs/news/omar-marquez-signs-professional-contract-with-real-monarchs He's 5'5". @goobx1 will love that. Weird that Olatunji starts on the bench? Also really hoping that Ruiz makes it through the night unscathed.
At this point if Ruiz leads us to win? I am not so concerned with the next match. and I am in no way saying I would be ok with him getting an injury. But if his talent puts us into the playoffs good.